Not a place for engineers - Senior Software Developer Groupon Employee Review

1.0
Dec 8, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good work-life balance. A large portion of the company is probably only in the office 50% of the time (and less of that time actually working). A very small pocket of solid engineers (though shrinking because they're jumping ship) If you negotiated hard of your salary, it could be pretty high (we're desperate to hire) though you'll be making a LOT more than the people at your level that got promoted into that level or didn't negotiate as hard.

Cons

Software Engineering is valued the least at this company. If you rank roles, it's sales people -> business people -> product people, then last comes software engineers. Terrible decisions made by the sales and business people cause a lot of trouble for engineers. Mostly because those people are really weak decision makers. Very poorly planned too. Product managers are often giving really weak and ill defined product requirements (engineers aren't allowed to define the product, engineers are relegated to just doing what they're told). Often the product managers aren't even thinking through their decisions and when engineers ask for clarifying questions, it's clear that the product managers didn't really think things through. Sometimes their responses is to just yell at the engineers. Product managers also throw engineers under the bus a lot of mistakes they make (product change requirements that result in a delay of delivery). Or they don't think through the end to end and forget to include a business team and then the whole project gets killed. Mission focus isn't clear as well. There's a big push for the goods business but the mission of the company is supposed to be about connecting people with local merchants. They're just doing it because there's money to be made. That's kind of the only driving factor at this company, making money. No one cares about making a long-term sustainable business or a good user experience unless they can make money off it. Not saying this is a bad goal, but this is basically the only goal. Company is very junior in experience, even folks in very senior leadership positions aren't very experienced and thus make a lot of bad decisions. Most people get to those levels because loyalty is promoted (or maybe it's out of desperation because they can't find anyone else).

Explore other reviews about Groupon

5.0
Jan 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Learned a great deal here. My first big guy job and the responsibilities kept me focused and motivated. I grew a lot as a person at Groupon as well

Cons

Not many cons. People are really cool.

2.0
Jun 11, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Gaining experience targeting multiple industries

Cons

Management doesn’t care about you. Unrealistic goals. Everyone at 30-40% of quota. Complicated quota attainment system. Your job is to ask for 70% of margins for small businesses that have only 10-15% margin budgets

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